5 Ways to Make Your Blog Reader-Friendly

If you’ve ever wondered how to start writing a blog successfully, look no further than your readers. You can produce as much content as you’d like and if your blog isn’t reader friendly, it’s bound to fail. So, today we’re going to give you some tips on making your blog user friendly!

Have a Clear Direction From The Start

Before dusting off your keyboard to start blogging, it’s important to have a clear direction for both your content, and the design of your blog.

The first thing to ask yourself is, where are you going to be making money and who is your target audience? Are you as a business owner wanting to blog to attract more customers? Or are you a traditional blogger wanting to profit off of ads, and sponsors?

Also ask yourself who will be consuming your content. Is it a middle age mom or a teen?

What problems are you solving for your audience?

How should they leave your blog feeling?

What do you want them to do after reading your content?

Answer these questions and you’ll naturally start to develop a road map for your content creation which will help make your blog more focused and thus more reader-friendly.

Don’t Write To Write

You know that question above where I asked how your audience should feel when they leave your blog?

One way you don’t want them to feel leaving, is indifferent.

Everything you create should be made with a purpose. It should be fresh, creative, and well-written to keep your audience engaged and create reader loyalty.

The best way to do this, is to think of your target audience while writing every piece. Ask yourself how your writing should impact them, and make them feel. Also ask how you’re providing value with the content you’re creating for your specific audience.

Create A Content Calendar

A realistic content calendar can help keep you consistent, but more importantly it creates a schedule for your readers. How many times have you stumbled upon outrageously good content, and not known when, or if, more would be created? That’s a scenario you don’t want to create for your audience. You want them to know that they can come back on a particular day and find new content.

Now, obviously the frequency of when you post, and what you’re posting, will be dependent upon your specifics, but most blogs should produce amazing content at least once a week. Too frequently and you might overwhelm your readers, or start creating shoddy content. However, if you don’t create content frequently enough, people will forget the value you provided them with to start with and drift away.

Figuring out a schedule that’s realistic for you and beneficial for your audience is a bit of a trial-and-error experience, but will be beneficial for both of you.

Think About Aesthetics And Layout

We’ve talked a lot about making your content reader friendly, but how your website looks and is categorized can vastly effect user experience.

Because your readers will have short attention spans (we all do), it’s important to direct them in making decisions.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to think about your blog design. Where does the eye go? Is the design distracting? What experience do you want your audience to have with the design?

The easiest way to figure out what you want, is to make a list of websites that currently have designs you know your readers will enjoy. You can then take those design and implement it into your website.

However design alone doesn’t help, if you don’t have good organization. Have you split your blog into categories and added tags to help group them by relevance? If not, that’s something you’ll want to focus on.

For instance, if you’re running a food blog, don’t just list every recipe, break it down into meals. Or, if you run a travel blog, break your adventures up by continent and then by country. This type of organization helps the reader make small decisions instead of being accosted by hundreds of articles.

Be Personal

Want the honest truth about the internet? There isn’t room for your content.

Yes, I said it. The content you make, no matter how fresh, or interesting or up-to-date, is easily replaceable. Plus, there’s a good chance someone has already created something just as good.

But something that’s not replaceable and often neglected is personality, authenticity and connection.

So, instead of following the crowd, try and let your personality shine through the content.

What’s your brand about and who’s behind it? Creating a personal connection with your audience will not only help you create connections and loyal readership, but it will automatically make your writing more personable which will create a friendlier experience for your audience.

Now that you have some tips to make your blog reader-friendly, it’s time to go out and conquer your content marketing strategy!